Syncope (Books and Broken Bones Edition)
by drewbug
Summary: 'This is what friends do, Matt. They sit around in waiting rooms reading sticky outdated People magazines for as long as it takes.'
1. Chapter 1

**Syncope (Books and Broken Bones Edition)**

 **N. Clevenger (June 2017)**

 **Notes:** You guys are just the best. Seriously. Buoyed by your love, I immediately jumped into finishing another of my languishing stories; you would have had it a week ago, but as always it just kept getting longer. It's a law school fic – chronologically the first (finally!) in this unconnected and poorly-named series – and a return to writing from Matt's POV because I missed it so much. Warnings for a bit of swearing and a lot of nausea, in case you're sensitive to those things. By now I think you've got a pretty good idea of what's coming next.

Netflix/Marvel canon. I make no money, because they don't belong to me.

* * *

Gravel crunches under his shoes as he walks, and he counts the segments of the path in his head to the soundtrack of its faintly grinding symphony. There's little other noise around to drown it out; it's early, but it is Friday night. This part of campus is virtually deserted.

The library had been fairly empty too, despite it being only a week until mid-terms. Most of the traditional resources there are of little use to him, but the quiet makes it a good place to study. Usually. Tonight there'd been that guy at the other end of the long table, the one who wouldn't stop clicking his pen. The definition of maddening. Matt had wasted more time trying to tune it out than he'd spent actually reading; when he had stopped reading entirely and instead began to calculate the motions it would take to go over there and rip the thing out of the guy's hand, he'd decided that he might as well leave. Go home, sleep if he can. Get up before dawn and go running while everyone else is still in bed. Start again fresh.

Streetlamps delineate the path, their high fiery flare always a consistent twenty feet apart. Four more and his turn. They're an easy marker, one he doesn't have to search for; Matt lets his attention drift, listening to the bits of distant conversation that the wind wafts his way.

 _Seriously, I'm starving. Pick something. Just call him. He was totally_ _into you. She's gonna kill me when she finds out. Hey sexy thing. Let's get a pizza. I'm not worried about it; it's cool. Maybe tomorrow. I'll call you. You should totally get it in blue. Eighteen. Please leave me alone._

The tone of the last one stops him abruptly, and he tries to determine where it originated. He looks for the voice again – female, tense – but can't find it. Matt stands motionless, rewinding through recent memory. To his left, he thinks. There's a copse of trees that way, substantial and rustling in the breeze. He cuts across the grass, heading toward them.

"There are people waiting for me." That same voice, a hint of flowery perfume.

"Don't walk away like you're too good to talk to us." Alcohol. Someone's obviously started their weekend early.

The click of heels on pavement. The metallic jingle of a zipper, a bracelet. "Please –"

"Come on, why you gotta be like that…"

Three people, two standing close and one a few feet distant. That fast frightened heartbeat a dramatic contrast with the relaxed pace of the others. Matt can't tell if there's actual ill-intent or just overzealous flirting, but either way the advances obviously aren't welcome. Either way the girl is scared.

The hazy shapes shift as the smaller one tries to pull away, coalesce again as she's pulled back. "Where're you going? I just want to talk to you."

"I think it's pretty clear that she doesn't want to talk to you," Matt says, skirting the last tree to join them on the sidewalk.

"And I think you should mind your own –" It's an automatic sounding retort, abruptly broken off. "Holy shit, seriously? What do you think _you're_ gonna do?"

The ghost of Stick in Matt's head is highly amused; an echoing smile twitches at his lips. He's used to being underestimated, frequently uses it to his advantage. "Try me," he says.

Both guys are laughing. Matt doesn't care. He stands calmly where he is as the taller one breaks away from the girl and walks lazily toward him, lets the guy's shove to his chest push him a step back. "You think you're some kind of hero?" Another shove, another step. The girl hasn't left yet; he wants at least to get them as far from her as possible. "Shouldn't have gotten involved, Hero." Shove. Step.

"Don't hurt him," the girl pleads from her rooted spot.

The downside to being underestimated is that sometimes people put themselves in unnecessary danger when they assume he can't take care of himself. The guy's breath – warm and drenched in beer – shifts off Matt's face as he turns back toward the girl. She'd been nearly forgotten; Matt had hoped she'd be smart enough to use the opportunity to get away.

"What, is this hero your boyfriend or something?"

A softly stammered no is the only response. Matt hears the crinkle of a paper bag, the sound of the other guy swallowing. "Hey. Talk to _me_ ," he tells the one in front him.

This gets his focus back, that breath hot on Matt's cheekbone. "You keep interrupting, Hero." Shove. Step. "You shouldn't do that." Shove. Step. "Because now I'm going to kick your –"

Matt grabs his wrists and pivots, taking out the guy's leg and flipping him to the ground.

The laughter cuts off. The girl squeaks in surprise. The guy on the sidewalk scrambles up a safe distance away; he's angry now, breathing hard. There's none of the cocky playfulness from a moment before as he rushes at Matt, but alcohol and rage make him clumsy and it's easy to parry the punches. Matt's not throwing any of his own, distraction still his main goal. He doesn't want to hurt these guys. Not really.

Maybe a little. Stick certainly likes the idea.

Matt ducks a wild swing, comes up to crack the guy across the face with his cane. More jarring than painful, but there's a choked expletive as his opponent staggers backward. Matt searches for the girl, finds that she still hasn't moved. "Go," he says in her direction. "Get out of here."

"But… Hey, look ou–"

He realizes he's been paying too much attention to her, to the guy he's facing down, just as the third member of the group smashes into him hard from the side. They go down together, the impact knocking most of the breath from his lungs. Blanking his senses. He thinks he hears the staccato receding beat of heels on pavement. Stick cackling at his mistake. His struggle to breathe isn't helped at all by the weight of the guy on top of him, by the hard edges of the laptop jabbing into his ribs. The twisted shoulder strap of his bag's trying to strangle him. And the arm trapped under all of this is _screaming_.

There's a grappling scuffle for dominance, flailing attacks that land on both sides. Matt's right arm is useless; he's mostly using his legs, trying to create some space. A lucky knee connects with bone, and the guy instantly slumps. He's dead weight across Matt's lower half.

Matt wiggles awkwardly out from under him, looking for signs that there's been no permanent damage done. Heartbeat strong, breathing even and steady. Should be okay. He attempts to stand; when the vertigo forces him back into a crouch, he turns the scrutiny on himself. On the flames pulsing up from his fingertips to his shoulder.

It's another mistake of misplaced attention, and he's rewarded with an arm slung around his throat from behind. Matt's hauled to his feet; the world dips sideways. An electric current rips up his arm, down his side, stealing away his breath. Stick warns him to end this now. Quickly, before there are any more witnesses. Before he becomes one more unconscious body left to be found.

He flings his head backward, and there's a burst of pain and a crunch that's a bit too satisfying. The hold falls away with a howl; Matt stumbles the other direction. It takes a precious few seconds to reorient his senses, to distance himself from the whirling in his skull, the burning in his arm. He holds the injured limb close to his body, tight against what are definitely bruised ribs. Forces himself to look beyond his own damage in order to locate his opponent.

There, on the ground. A muffled string of curses woven through with a moan. It's more of an effort than it should be to focus on the rest of the picture; the fire wavers and sparks, distorted by the rising whine in his head. The other guy's still out where Matt left him. The girl finally seems to be gone. As far as he can determine there's no one else around, but there's no telling how long that will last. He needs to get out of here while he can.

He's two steps away when Stick hisses a frustratingly necessary reminder about evidence left behind; there's another flush of dizziness as he turns back around. He'd dropped the cane when he'd been tackled, he thinks, and he shuffles a few steps in that direction. Matt doubts that either of these two are going to admit to being beaten by a blind guy, but there's no sense in leaving any more proof that he was here. He steps carefully between them. Neither show any signs of moving, even the conscious half of the duo. Matt tries to stay out of arm's reach, but the guy seems content to remain a crumpled heap.

He finds the cane with his shoe, nearly ending up on the ground himself when he steps on it and it rolls beneath his heel. His ribs protest as he bends to pick it up. The laptop bag shifts against his hip, and there's a rush of anxiety when he wonders briefly if his computer's broken. It's a concern set aside when he straightens, and the whine in his head gets distressingly louder.

When it subsides a little, Matt can hear people. Still far down the path, but headed this way. Time to leave. He adjusts the bag's strap on his shoulder, holds his cane in his left hand. He can't really bend the fingers of his right. But, like the laptop, it's not something he can deal with now. He needs to get away from here, regroup.

"You broke my fucking nose," comes a garbled snarl from the sidewalk. A rubber scuff against pavement, a half-hearted flail of a kick that misses Matt by more than a foot.

"Maybe next time you'll listen when someone tells you to leave them alone," Stick growls in Matt's voice as they pass him.

His choice of direction is motivated only by the oncoming people; Matt turns the opposite way. Trying to judge how far distant they are, he moves as quickly as he can down the empty path. It's difficult with this vertigo rocking the world at every step. He's having trouble even walking in a straight line, having to continuously recenter himself when his cane keeps finding the edge of the sidewalk.

Stick scoffs at his excuses. Begins a monologue dissection of his errors during the confrontation.

His hand feels swollen to twice its size, his right arm a mess of nauseatingly wet heat. Bent at the elbow, it's pressed protectively into the soft folds of his sweatshirt across his stomach. His glasses are crooked, one of the nose pieces digging into his skin. He wonders what he looks like. There's a bench up ahead, low and solid and smelling of wood and metal; he misjudges the boundaries of its dark blurry outline, defines its hard dimensions with a knee. His body hisses its displeasure as he tumbles down onto the seat.

It takes a couple of indulgent breaths before he can wrest himself upright out of this slumped position. Matt adjusts his glasses, tries to flatten his tousled hair. He can smell blood, traces it back to his knuckles. He runs his fingers along his face, his hairline, just to be sure; there's a tender spot over his right temple, but no broken skin.

Hoping that there's little outward damage to be noticed by anyone passing by, he shifts his focus internal. The bruising down his right side is fairly superficial, an annoyance he can easily hide. But his arm…

Fingers curl into an experimental fist; they get no further than a twitch before pain roars up to his shoulder. Clutching at his elbow with a gasp, he reflexively casts his senses out to see if there's anyone close. The response isn't as immediate as it should be. When he finally decides that he's still alone, he grits his teeth and forces himself to concentrate as he flexes his fingers again. This time he's more prepared for the bolt that shoots breathless past his elbow, and he's able to localize the injury to his wrist. Probably his ulna. Probably the same spot that it's already been broken twice before.

"No, I have no idea who he was. He just showed up and saved me."

Matt's head comes up fast at the familiar female voice, and the night sloshes around inside his skull. He'd gotten farther from the scene of the fight than he'd thought, but still not far enough if campus security opts to start searching. Especially if they've got the girl in tow. Maybe if he ditches the glasses and cane she won't recognize him, won't be able to point him out.

But if he shows up at home without them, there's definitely going to be questions from Foggy. Better to be safe and just go.

He tentatively pushes himself up with one hand, pleased when things remain relatively stable. Deciding to cut through another set of trees and take a different path back, he walks for five minutes before realizing he's going in the wrong direction. He's too busy ignoring the throbbing in his arm to notice. Stick's too occupied with his chant of _broken, broken, broken_ to comment.

Matt turns around, retracing his steps with a sigh. Broken means medical attention. More importantly, broken means having to come up with a story to explain how it happened. Something that'll no doubt paint him pathetic, color him in hues of fragility. Some silly lie about tripping over his own feet.

The toe of his sneaker catches on nothing and he stumbles. He's never heard Stick laugh so hard, inside his head or out.

Maybe it's not actually broken. Maybe it's simply a vicious sprain. An injury he can disguise until it becomes more manageable. Stick calls him an idiot and a liar, but Matt resolves to wait until the morning and see. He'll have a better sense of the damage in the morning, when it's not so swollen. He can figure out what to do about it then.

Their housing lies at one end of the campus, and he debates continuing down the street to the CVS to pick up some kind of bandaging. But navigating the store and its customers – not to mention the extra trek there and back – feels like too much work. Every step ricochets up his right side and down through his arm, and the world still flickers with the occasional sickening shiver. All he really wants is to collapse on his bed and deal with his wounds in private.

Well that and for Stick to stop laughing.

Two other people join him in the building's creaky elevator, the volume of their conversation like a cymbal crashing next to his ear. Matt tugs the sleeve of his sweatshirt down over his swollen hand, forces himself to stand straight with the arm at his side. But they don't seem to be giving him any undue attention; it gives him hope that he can pass his roommate's inspection. He exits on his floor, working to keep his gait normal and trying to coerce his lips into something that's closer to a smile. He drags a hand through his hair again as he reaches their door.

Foggy's got company.

Matt freezes with his fingers wrapped around the door knob, stalled by the anomaly of a male voice he doesn't recognize. He tries to recall any recent talk of weekend plans. Thinks about turning around, maybe going back to the library. A flood of sound suddenly blares from someone's speakers, unexpectedly flipping the hallway and bumping Matt into the doorframe. Stick pokes at the sore spot on his temple and whispers _head injury_. Matt swallows, takes a breath and opens the door.

"Murdock! Excellent timing! This is my cousin Ben, and the three of us are about to go out on the town. A little food, a little drink, a celebration of friends old and new. Leave your stuff. Let's go."

Matt's smile feels cracked and glaringly artificial, and he tries not to wobble under the battering of Foggy's enthusiasm. "Nice to meet you, Ben." He crosses the room to his bed, turning away from them to hide the wince when he awkwardly pulls the bag over his head with his left hand. The nerves in the fingers of his dangling right are keeping a steady beat that radiates up to his elbow. "But I, uh… I have a few things to do. Sorry. Maybe next time."

"Like what?" Foggy demands, his footsteps sliding him seamlessly into Matt's personal space. It's not an uncommon habit with his roommate, and something he's still trying to get used to.

Right now he feels trapped against his bed, the backs of his legs pressed up against the mattress. "Like study. I don't know what kind of a deal you've got, but some of us have midterms coming up."

"Okay, A: it's Friday, and there are rules about studying on a Friday. B: you have a scholarship –"

"Which has a GPA requirement…"

"And C: you already get better grades than anyone else I know. Try again, Counselor." There's a long pause, and Matt guesses that Foggy's looking him over by the way his tone narrows suspiciously. "What's wrong with you? You seem… I dunno. Off."

Matt keeps his chin up, resists the urge to hide his hands behind his back. "Nothing's wrong with me. I'm just not that hungry. I'll grab something later."

"Uh-huh." Foggy sounds absolutely unconvinced.

But the room is gradually tilting around them, and Matt's desperate to elevate his wrist to relieve some of the accumulating pressure. When Stick points out a temporary escape, he takes it. "Fine," he says, carefully sliding out from between Foggy and the bed. "Just give me a minute." He heads for the comparable solitude of the bathroom, making an effort to move as naturally as possible.

He's not sure he manages it, but nobody says anything; he tries not to let the bathroom door slam as his weight sags against it from the other side. He rests there for an exhausted minute – eyes closed and his angry wrist held against his chest, already worn out by this performance – and absently listens to the food discussion happening in the other room. Matt really doesn't want to go, but to explain why is definitely going to ruin his empathetic roommate's good mood. Possibly even the night, if it prompts Foggy to change his plans.

Which it actually might. The guy is constantly surprising him.

So he'll go fake his way through an hour, excuse himself and come back here to have the room to himself. He can do that. It's only an hour. Stick has his doubts, but Matt pushes off the door to stumble the few steps to the sink. He flushes the unused toilet as an excuse for the time he's already spent in here, turns on the cold water and clumsily attempts with one hand to splash more of it on his face than onto his clothes. It wakes him up somewhat, but not as much as when he submerges his wrist in its icy stream. He does the best he can to clean up the unseen abrasions that he can feel on his knuckles.

He'd be happy to stand here all night – the cold water pure bliss, the first alleviation of the pain since it started – but lingering is only going to add to the case that Foggy's probably started building against him. Matt shuts off the tap, noticing as he pulls his sleeve down over his wrist that it's starting to seem a bit constricting; he opens the medicine cabinet, sure that Foggy has something that could help with the swelling. But there's two bottles in there with unidentifiable pills rattling around inside, and Matt's not going to make a guess. He closes the squeaky cabinet door and puts back on his glasses.

"Ready," he says as he comes out of the bathroom. It rings with far more conviction than he feels. He crosses to the bed, finds his cane where he'd dropped it. "Where are we going?"

"I was thinking of The Last Stop," Foggy answers. "But Ben's got a car, so we could go pretty much anywhere."

Ben's the cousin who's been driving around the country, Matt remembers now. He smells like he hasn't showered in a couple of days, hasn't washed the clothes he's wearing for a lot longer than that. Matt's got no idea if it's strong enough for anyone with a less sensitive nose to notice, but he's got no desire to be stuck in a car with this guy. Plus anywhere they drive to will be more of a hassle to get back from. The bar's within walking distance. "The Stop sounds good," he lies.

They move out into the hallway together, and Foggy hesitates briefly. Maybe expecting Matt to take his arm, but there's no way Matt's fingers are going to be able to grip the cane if he transfers it to his right hand. So he ignores him. Foggy takes the hint, starts off toward the elevator.

It's not unusual, but Matt's always amazed at how good Foggy is at deciphering his hints.

The place is busy when they get there, but another thing Foggy's great at is finding empty tables in what Matt considers chaos. Tonight he's especially grateful for this skill. He stands waiting near the door forcing small talk with Ben, the crowd assaulting his senses and the girl on his other side an explosion of boisterous gestures that keep flying dangerously close to his injured arm. It can't be more than five minutes before Ben announces that Foggy's found a spot, but Matt's already got a headache. As he follows Foggy's cousin across the room, Stick helpfully suggests that maybe he should stop grinding his teeth.

Ben's apparently got an endless supply of stories, and Foggy seems to be enjoying them. To Matt it's just a droning over the din, but he works to pretend like he's paying attention. He avoids the food they order but accepts the beer, hoping it'll dull the sheen of his brutalized senses. When it doesn't, he has another.

The third one's probably a mistake – considering he can't remember the last time he ate – and getting from the table to the restroom is a major feat of concentration. The crowd's just a smear of noise and bodies; every step feels treacherously unsteady. But people must be getting out of his way, because he's got a remarkably clear path.

He wishes he hadn't had that thought. Now he's paranoid that people are staring.

Nothing he can do but put one foot in front of the other in what's hopefully a fairly straight line; it takes days to get where he's going, but he makes it without incident. The door closes behind him, dimming the noise to a low rumbling thunder, and he finds himself alone. Too bad he can't enjoy the solitude. While Matt understands that nobody would describe the odor of a public restroom as _pleasant_ , to his senses the miasma borders on excruciating. Certainly someplace to be avoided if at all possible. He doesn't linger.

But when he opens the door to a tidal wave of crushing sound, he decides that he's not quite ready to return to the table yet either. Matt leans his back against the wall, breathing in the wisps of fresh air coming from the open fire door at the far end of the short hallway in which he's standing. Not much of it reaches all the way to him. What does carries different scents from the haze in here, and he channels his focus into naming them. Cigarette smoke, curry. A dumpster near the door and beef cooking down the street. A few people approach him, pass by; hypervigilant over any accidental contact with his injury, he holds his right arm safely close.

His shoulder aches in its unnatural stiffness; his forearm's a deafening throb. The only part of the thing that doesn't really hurt anymore is his fingers, and that's only because the sensation in them has numbed to an intermittent tingling. There's no comfort in this. Somebody in this place has a shriek of a laugh, and Matt winces when it arcs above the clamor to stab him in the eardrum. He should go. Find Foggy and Ben and say his goodbyes, stagger home and pass out. Maybe throw up first. God, he feels like crap.

Stick makes exaggerated whimpering noises. Goes back to prodding the bruise on the side of Matt's head.

Any minute now he's going to move; he assures himself of this despite his eyes being closed, despite the fact that the wall behind him still supports most of his weight. He pulls in a deep breath through his nose, and with it comes the scent of a familiar perfume.

"Oh wow, it _is_ you. I just… I mean, I can't… I mean…" A gulp of air. " _Thank_ you."

She's a flurry of nervous energy and motion, forced into uncomfortable proximity by the confines of the narrow hallway. Matt feels like he's been slapped. He's too off-balance to have this conversation, doesn't want to have it where someone might overhear and connect any dots. In truth, he'd hoped he'd never run into her again.

He thinks about feigning ignorance, but she doesn't seem to have any doubts about his identity. And he hasn't even changed his clothes.

"Are you okay?" she rushes on; his arm immediately falls from its braced position against his stomach. "I ran for help when that guy knocked you down. My phone was dead, so I had to find one of those security phone thingies. I thought they… I didn't know what they were going to do to you. But then we got back and you weren't there so I hoped that meant you were okay. You _are_ okay, right?"

"I'm okay," Matt assures her smoothly, even dredging up a fluttering smile. She's a lot smaller than him, he notices now that she's standing so close. "Are you okay?"

"I wouldn't be if it wasn't for you. That was crazy. How did you –"

He shrugs his left shoulder. "I just got lucky. What did you tell the security guys?" He thinks it sounds as nonchalant as he'd intended, but he's having trouble separating his own voice from the cacophony in here.

"Well I had to tell them something. It's not like _I_ beat those guys up. If I could've done that, I wouldn't have needed the rescue. But I didn't tell them, um… you know. I didn't tell them anything that would point to you. The way you disappeared, I figured you didn't want the attention."

It's a relief. He's had enough of being the local celebrity. "Thank you."

"No, thank _you_. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Not a lot of people would have done what you did, and I'm never going to forget it. You were amazing."

A flush of embarrassment floods up to his ears, and he's hoping it's too dark for her to be able to tell. "I'm just happy that you're alright."

People are coming and going around them, and the girl keeps inching nearer. Her perfume tickles at the inside of his nose. That screech of a laugh pierces his eardrum again, and Matt flinches. The cramping beat in his wrist keeps time with his pulse.

Suddenly there are big stumbling footsteps heading this way; he puts his good arm up between the girl and the impending menace, takes the minor impact when the guy staggers into them. The alcohol splashes about in the intruder's glass, and Matt thinks he's probably got beer on his sleeve now on top of everything else.

"Saving me again," the girl says, once the guy's tripped past them. "Are you sure you're okay?"

His hand's on her shoulder, soft cotton under his fingertips. He drops his arm. "Of course."

"Because you're shaking."

"I –" He hadn't noticed, doesn't know what to say. The hallway presses thickly, and escape feels like the best option. "Look, I'm sorry, I have to go. My friends…"

"Oh. Sure. Me too."

Everything wavers when he pushes away from the wall; that whine is back, ringing above all of the rest of it. "Have a good night," he mumbles, sidling past her. It feels abrupt, rude. But he needs to get out of here.

"Hey, what's your name?" she calls to his back as he walks crookedly away from her.

Matt pretends he doesn't hear. Keeps walking.

When he returns to the table, Ben's spinning a tale of time spent in San Francisco. Matt doesn't want to interrupt; reluctantly he slides back into his seat. It feels good to be sitting down, even if part of his brain insists he's still moving. His thoughts feel too loose, his body too rigid. His senses warped by the overpowering thumping from his wrist under the table. He hopes his new friend doesn't decide to come over and try to join them. He really wants to go home.

"… party?" Foggy's voice crests over the bass line of whatever's playing on the speakers. He bumps the side of Matt's shoe with his own. "Matt?"

He hadn't realized Ben's story was done. He'd missed the ending. "Party?" Matt echoes.

"Yes, party. You know, the one you said you'd go to? The one that we both know I only got invited to because of the assumption that I'd bring you along?"

Right. There's a party. "Fog…" His brain scrambles, but there's nothing beyond Stick's too-gleeful repetition. _Broken, broken, broken_ … "You should take Ben," he finally suggests lamely, as if Ben wasn't going with them anyway. "Introduce him to some people."

"Aw come on, Murdock..." Foggy's louder than usual, his words not quite slurred but definitely rounded at their corners. Matt wonders how many beers he's had. If he can trust Ben to look out for him. "You said last week that you'd go to this thing. You have to go to this thing."

"Leave him alone," Ben interjects. "He's got some place else to be." Matt feels a brief surge of gratitude for this stranger. At least until the tone twists into a flippant falsetto. "Thank you, thank you, thank you. You were _amazing_."

Matt flinches at the overblown impression, obviously intended to entertain and insinuate. It gets Foggy's attention, and the table shifts as he leans forward into it. "Okay, now _that_ sounds like a story I definitely should have already heard."

"It wasn't like that." Matt tries to smooth out the scowl, to make the denial sound less defensive. "You misunderstood," he says to Ben.

Foggy's not buying this, broadcasting his curiosity from across the small table. Ben's not letting it go either. "I'm never going to forget it," he repeats, ridiculously breathless and out of context. Matt curses himself for not being more aware of his surroundings. Stick doesn't disagree.

He forces an amicable smile and a huff of a laugh, takes a swig he doesn't want from what's left in his bottle. The beer slides sour down his throat, and the room shimmies when he shakes his head. "It wasn't like that," he says again.

"Well I absolutely need to hear exactly what it _was_ like," Foggy says. "On the way to the party. But first, the bathroom." Minute vibrations travel through the vinyl booth, the table, as he gets to his feet. "Who knows? Maybe I'll meet my own mystery lady while I'm there." He turns away, humming along with the new song that's started.

The night drops soddenly and unexpectedly onto Matt's shoulders, a weighted blanket – _scent and noise, bodies and motion, alcohol and pain_ – stitched through with his exhaustion. It sags his shoulders, drops his chin toward his chest, before Stick has to remind him that he's not alone. He lifts his head, straightens. It's a struggle when everything feels so heavy.

"You should bring her to the party," Ben says. "I think she's still here."

Matt makes a noncommittal noise, has another drink just for something to do. He can barely swallow it. He can feel himself trembling now; it's uncontrollable, and an odd contrast to the sweat on the back of his neck.

"Seriously, she's really hot. I mean, I guess that doesn't matter to you, right? But she is. _Really_ hot. Hell, I'll take her if you don't want to. Just introduce me."

He's not sure if it's his own irritation that colors this so lecherous. Decides he doesn't care at the moment. He needs some air. Solitude. Maye then he can come with a valid excuse for skipping the party. "Excuse me," he mutters as he slips out of the booth. His wrist shouts a protest at the change in position, shifting and bulging against the restrictions of his sleeve. "I need to make a phone call."

"Hey, don't be like that…" Ben latches onto his right arm above the elbow; reflexively Matt pulls away. He smacks the side of his hand into the vinyl padding of the booth, and the jolt reverberates all the way up to his back teeth. He clamps them together against the howl, the regurgitated beer, pushing up from his throat.

The world sparkles, nothing staying still or whole long enough to be identified, and he sucks in air through his teeth as he searches desperately for the direction of the door. His choice feels uncertain and frighteningly far away. He mumbles to Ben that he'll be right back, uncaring that it's probably not loud or coherent enough to be understood. His only concern is getting out of here before he throws up.

Though, as he tries not to stagger toward what he hopes – _god, please, it has to be_ – is the fire door, he recognizes that unconsciousness is its own concern. The room's taken on a strange rubberband effect. Stretching away only to snap back with a disorienting unpredictability. Too difficult to get a good sense of the glittering space, so he concentrates instead on the faint hint of fresh air that he's praying isn't merely his imagination. He looks for the foul odor of the restrooms, a good directional marker.

But everything's just beer and liquor. Cologne and sweat. The bass beat drums against his skull.


	2. Chapter 2

(see part one for notes and disclaimer)

* * *

"Foggy. Foggy. Foggy. Foggy. Foggy."

Matt remembers programming that in, one of his few contacts; he automatically uncurls enough to get to the phone in his pocket. Everything aches and he's _freezing_ , except for the fire burning in his forearm. His muscles are disturbingly leaden, fingers tingling and without their normal dexterity. It's hard to shut the ringer up, to lift the annoying thing to his ear.

The noise he makes is more guttural sound than hello, but there's no space in which to try again before Foggy's voice bursts from the speaker. "Here's something you might not know about me: I was always terrible at Hide and Seek. A source of deep shame, so it's possible I've never mentioned it. You're just going to have to tell me. Where did you go?"

"Huh?" He can't make sense of what Foggy's saying. Can't figure out why he's so cold. Who's supposed to be hiding? He's not hiding, he's –

Panic claws through the haze. He has no idea where he is. How he got here.

"I mean, you could've at least said goodbye," Foggy rolls over him, loud and oblivious. "What happened? Why'd you leave?"

He's outside, on the ground. A brick wall at his back. Instinctively he tries to get to his feet; his left hand's holding the phone, so it's his right he attempts to shove himself up with. Pain surges past everything as it makes contact with the ground.

"What was that?" Foggy demands through the whirling night, his words now tinny and far away. "Matt? Tell me where you are."

The words mean nothing, but the voice is a rope of fire that he clings desperately to in his disorientation. At first he can only hang on, but slowly he begins to climb. Past _hurt_ , _cold_ , _lost_.

 _Outside. Ground. Wall._

"Say something, man. What's going on?"

He lifts his head from his knees, and the nauseating spinning picks up speed. Matt swallows hard, tries to force himself to see through it. A high-walled emptiness to his right that has the feel of an alley; something hollow and rancid a foot to his left. A dumpster, his knuckles confirm when he reaches out to it. Most importantly, there's no one around. The nearest people seem to be congregated at least thirty feet away. Probably out on the street.

Good. That's good.

He closes his eyes, sick and exhausted and wanting to rest a moment on this little victory. But Stick urges him to keep looking. He'd been at the bar, his last clear memory. It would go a long way toward explaining why he feels so stupid, so drunk.

"Seriously, Matt, where are you?" It registers vaguely that Foggy sounds a bit frantic, breathless. "Did you go home? Please tell me you're home."

Not home. _Lost…_

Not lost. He's in an alley. He'd been at the bar – leaving the bar? – and now he's in an alley. Fear's fingers skitter down his spine with the disconcerting reminder of the missing time, but Stick sounds unusually patient as he pushes Matt to focus instead on just how _much_ time has actually gone missing.

"Say something. Say _anything_ ," Foggy pleads, both here and not here.

The air on his face still has the unique bite of nighttime, the bubbly blur of the voices on the street a sign that he's probably not far from the bar. From _a_ bar, anyway. Those fingers flutter over his back again with the thought that he might've stumbled even farther from campus.

But Foggy's here.

Foggy's not here.

The phone. Foggy's on the phone. Matt moves as little as possible as he searches the ground by his shoes, but the shifting still flares the pain in his arm. Liquifies the night around his head. He groans, needing to pause for a moment to put all of his concentration into not throwing up. He swears to himself that he'll never drink again.

He makes another try for the phone, fingers finally closing around what has become an unending anxious monologue. His head's back on his bent knees, too heavy to hold up, his broken wrist resting useless in his lap. He manages to get the phone up to his mouth if not actually all the way to his ear. "Fog…"

The flow of words cuts off abruptly. "Matt?"

It's such a sincere-sounding question – _who else would it be?_ – that for a moment Matt wonders which one of them had initiated this call. The thought crawls about his brain like a worm. The idea of having a worm in his brain makes his stomach roll. "Yeah," he grits through clenched teeth.

"Where are you? What happened? You sound like shit."

It takes a long minute for Matt to sort through this fast-flung stream of words; when he finally translates them all, he realizes he still doesn't have an answer. "I…" The panic rises again. Pinging around in his unsettled stomach, speeding up the beat of his heart. A spasm of pain shoots through his wrist to his fingertips, and he groans into the phone before he can stop himself.

"Okay." Foggy's deep breath rasps through the speaker. "Okay. No problem. I will come to you. I'm guessing you're not at home?"

"Not at home," Matt mumbles. He can barely understand himself, hopes that he's not going to have to repeat it.

But he shouldn't have worried, not with Foggy. "Because that would be too easy," his friend mutters. "Okay, no problem. I'm betting that you're still somewhere close." A beat. "Are you somewhere close?" he asks hopefully.

Matt has no idea. He's trying not to hyperventilate, but the pain and the alcohol aren't helping him find his control. He presses his forehead into his kneecaps; it's uncomfortable, so he presses harder. A minor pain he can manipulate. A point of focus.

"Hey it's okay, it's okay," Foggy's saying, maybe has been for a while. The curved plastic edges of the phone bite into the insides of Matt's knuckles. "Nothing to worry about. I'm sure I'll see you in a second. Do you hear me, Matt? Say something."

In between breaths still too close together, he forces out the first thing that comes to mind. "Something."

"There's that legendary Murdock wit. So, like I said, I'll be there in a second. Okay?"

A small part of his brain – _with the worms_ , he thinks, swallowing repeatedly – notices the major effort that Foggy's making to sound calm, reassuring. Matt knows he should be doing more to help. Stick's less patient now; he's of the opinion that Matt should already be up on his feet. That he should be the one looking for _Foggy_.

"Okay," he agrees. It's the most he can manage at the moment.

"Okay. Good. So now that we've established that you're right around the corner and that I can totally find you on my own… could you, uh, maybe help me out with a hint? Where'd you go when you left the bar?"

It's the wrong question, and Matt feels his heartrate ratchet up again as the fragile serenity he'd been shaping is shattered. _I don't know_. "Alley. M'in an alley." _I think._

"See? That's useful information. Keep those insights coming."

Some of the background noise on the call – a muted thumping bass beat, a multitude of conversations Matt's only just registering now – drops away as Foggy starts walking. Matt tries to determine if the beat vibrating through the wall behind him is the same one, but he can't decide. The conflicting tempo in his wrist is too distracting. The skin feels impossibly tight, raw where it rubs against the inside of his sleeve.

He can't believe he broke his wrist again. Broken means strangers, people poking at him from out of the dark. Broken means no punching bag for at least a few weeks. Broken means running in a cast. He hates running in a cast; it makes him feel unbalanced. But it seems like those hoodied pre-dawn runs are going to be his only chance at anything like a workout for a while.

"Come on, Murdock," Foggy says, pulling him back. "What else've you got? Sounds? Smells?"

He doesn't want to move, but he makes himself sit up; his head falls against the wall behind him with a _thunk_ that reverberates through to his teeth. He can hear music, people. Traffic on the street. A dog's muffled barking. He smells piss, rotting garbage, cigarettes. But it's the odors of cooking food – hamburger, pizza – that really turn his stomach.

Matt gags, coughs. "Pizza. Burgers." It doesn't necessarily narrow things down in this neighborhood. He tries to remember which pizza place is closest to the bar, but now he's got the taste of greasy pepperoni pooling in the back of his throat and the imagined feel of goopy mozzarella sitting heavy on his tongue. It's only adding urgency to the rising nausea.

He needs to stop thinking.

Passing out again would be nice. Unconsciousness beckons, circling like mist, too tempting in the face of how miserable he feels. Stick commands focus, but the alcohol wraps gentle arms around his shoulders and murmurs _sleep_. Foggy will either find him or he won't. It's not like Matt's offering much help in the search anyway.

Foggy says something Matt misses entirely; there's just the sound of his friend's voice, here and not here. But it reminds him why he can't surrender to the tantalizing nothingness. Maybe if he was alone in this, maybe then he could give in for a bit. Get himself home when he came to. But he's pretty sure that Foggy will completely freak out if he gets here and finds him unconscious. There'll definitely be an ambulance. A scene.

Plus he's too exposed out here, even shielded on one side by the dumpster. No, he's got to stay awake. Unfortunately.

But Foggy had better hurry.

Foggy's monologuing again, a buzz near his ear, but Matt's jaw is clamped tight against the nausea and he's afraid to open it to respond. His left arm's trembling, tired of holding up the phone. He leans forward again, lets his forehead drop back onto his knees. With his arm resting on his thigh, he can more easily keep the phone where he's still able to hear the hum of Foggy's voice.

It's surprisingly comforting.

When he catches himself drifting, a twitch of barely-responsive fat fingers instantly jolts him awake. This trick works once, twice. Maybe more. He can't say how long he sits waiting, only that Foggy was on the phone and now he's coming down the alley. That familiar gait and an aftershave that Matt can identify almost faster than his own.

"Here," Matt grunts, not certain he's loud enough to be heard. "Dumpster."

He knows he should stand up, but he doesn't get any farther than the thought before the footsteps are nearing his position. Foggy's voice coming from two directions at once. "So I guess not this alley either then. Because you said 'dumpster,' and I'm at a dumpster, but I don't see – Oh. Hi."

Matt feels Foggy stop in front of him. He can't make himself move.

"Matt?" Definitely confused, inching into a worried that can't be covered up. When Matt finally starts to pay attention, it's difficult to ignore Foggy's thudding heart. The way he's breathing more quickly than normal.

He wrests his head high enough off of his knees to be heard. "Hi."

"Are you okay? What are you doing over here?"

"M'okay," Matt assures him automatically. Realizing that he doesn't need to hold the phone up anymore, he lets it slip away from where it's smashed against his jaw. He pushes himself to at least sit up, pressing the length of his spine into the wall behind him like he might be able to absorb some of its stability.

"Looking at you, I'd say that's probably debatable. What happened at the bar? Was it Ben?"

Matt had forgotten about Cousin Ben completely, wonders if he's going to come bounding around the corner any second. Probably with the girl in tow. "Nothing happened. Where is he?"

"I gave him directions to the party. Told him I'd meet him there."

Matt's shivering, despite all of his muscles being tensed against it; his right arm sizzles and sparks unpredictably underneath its steady swollen heat. He's grateful that he doesn't have to deal with Ben right now, but he didn't think Foggy felt the same way. "Why?"

"Something about the way you left didn't feel right, man. You don't just disappear."

This blinks open eyes Matt hadn't noticed he'd let close, and he can't quite put a name – _surprise safe homesick endangered loved smothered belonging_ – to the emotion evoked. Stick growls something about friendships, dependency.

"And, apparently, I am a genius for following my instincts," Foggy continues. "What's going on with you?"

 _Broken, broken, broken._ "Too much to drink," Matt mumbles. It doesn't taste like a lie.

"Really? You had, what? Like three beers?" Again that blend of unidentifiable emotion. "Were you drinking before that? I thought you said you were going to the library."

"I –"

Someone's coming. Only one set of unhurried feet, no obvious threat, but Matt knows that if he needs to defend them he's not going to be able to do it from down here. He uses the solidity of the wall and the muscles in his legs to shove himself up; faster than his battered blood pressure can compensate, and the night cascades away, raining down around him like a bucket of sand poured over his head. He crashes back into the brick, a whack to his elbow shifting the bones in his wrist. Foggy's saying his name – insistently, repeatedly – squeezing his other arm.

He hangs on to consciousness, but loses the battle with the nausea. Matt tries to pull his arm free but Foggy won't let him go; he leans the other way and hopes to miss his shoes.

"Gross," Foggy says, swallowing thickly. "Have to say, I wasn't expecting that."

Matt sways in his grip, shaking. He slumps a shoulder against the brick, gritting his teeth at the pain that shimmies down his arm. "Sorry." He looks for the unfamiliar footsteps; they've sped up, are continuing down the alley. He could've stayed where he was.

"So what else is going on? Because I have to tell you, you're usually a lot more fun as a drinking buddy."

The word _drinking_ conjures a mental echo of liquid vomit splashing on the pavement, and his stomach flips again. Matt gags, spits. "Sorry," he repeats.

"I heard you the first time. What I'm not hearing is any kind of answer to my question."

There's an ache between his shoulder blades to match the one behind his eyes. He just wants to go home. To not be standing anymore. "You should go to the party. Find Ben. I'll be okay."

Foggy's humorless bark of a laugh bounces off the high walls around them, and Matt winces. "You're kidding, right? I'm not going to leave you here like this. You can barely stand up."

Matt bristles under this assumed helplessness; Stick hisses _weak_ and _soft_ and a few other things that he tries to ignore. He works to stand up straighter, to shrug off Foggy's hold on his arm. "M'okay," he insists. It sounds more petulant than assured.

"Uh-huh. Because you're always ditching me to hang out in alleys next to smelly dumpsters. You do know that we're three blocks away from the bar? In the opposite direction from campus? Where were you going?"

Another panicked chill flutters through his empty stomach. He can't admit that has no idea. "Don't need to worry about me."

"Ordinarily I would agree that that's true." A creak of rubber as Foggy's weight shifts in his shoes. The sound of fingernails running through hair. "But tonight I have to admit that I might be a teensy bit worried. You look horrible. And what'd you do to your arm?"

"What? Nothing." Ridiculous when he's cradling it close like he is, when he's practically curled around around it. He shifts the position of his arms subtly, trying to make it look like they're wrapping his stomach instead.

"Right. So I'm just not supposed to notice that my best friend's suddenly left-handed?"

Matt hasn't yet come up with a story, doesn't want to tell him anything at all. One of the best things about Foggy is that he treats Matt just like everybody else. But there haven't been any major mishaps in the short time they've known each other. Matt's afraid that this might change things. He doesn't want Foggy to start looking at him like he's fragile.

So he goes with vague half-truth, hoping that Foggy won't press for details. "Hurt my wrist. Might be sprained." _Might be._

"Hurt your wrist how? Does this have something to do with that girl?"

That captive dog's still barking, probably shut up in an apartment nearby. Matt listens to it for a few moments, trying to imagine the shape of it; he can't. He hasn't had a lot of experience with dogs. But it does give him the outline he needs for a sketch of a plausible story. "Yeah, her, uh… her dog got loose. I tried to stop it. Kind of stupid, I guess." He throws in a sheepish one-shouldered shrug.

There's a long silence in response to this. Matt's sure that Foggy's staring at him, reminds himself that the guy could just as easily be looking at something out in the street. Even if it doesn't sound like there's anything particularly interesting happening out there. He tries not to fidget, but there's nothing he can do about the shivering. The beat in his wrist counts off the seconds.

"Sounds like you," Foggy finally says. "But at least part of that's a lie. And I know this because you, my friend, are a terrible liar."

Stick's laughing again. Matt has to duck his head and bite back a smirk of his own, the alcohol finding humor in inappropriate places.

Fortunately Foggy doesn't seem to notice. "I'm just trying to figure out if you're lying about the part with the girl or the part about the sprain."

The wind shifts, and the humor dissipates with the heavy smell of frying grease. "Neither." Matt swallows, closes his eyes behind his glasses. "Go to the party, Fog. Really, I'm okay."

"Forget the party. Let me see your wrist."

"What? Why?" His eyes open, bone moving against itself as his arm drops to his side. He hopes it's dark in this alley. "Thought you were going to be a lawyer when you grow up, not a doctor."

"I watch a lot of TV medical dramas. I've got years and years of fictional experience."

Considering how ugly his wrist feels, he doubts that the sight of it is going to console Foggy at all. And he certainly doesn't want him to _touch_ it. Doesn't want anyone to touch it. Maybe tomorrow. "It's fine. I'll go to the Health Center in the morning, have somebody look at it."

"Or we could just go to the ER right now."

 _We._ Matt sighs; he knew this would happen, and he curses himself for not being able to pull off the deception. "If it's a sprain, they're going to tell me to ice it. No reason to waste your night." He can't tell if he's slurring his words, but it's certainly getting harder to shape them. He really wants to lie down.

"So _you're_ a doctor now?"

He rests the side of his face against the rough wall, breathing in the scents of dust and brick. "My dad was a boxer, remember?" There's a _swish_ of something smooth sliding against fabric, a jingle of change. Foggy's hand in his pocket. Maybe pulling out his phone. "What're you doing?"

"I'm getting my phone so I can use the flashlight to – Holy shit, Matt! That is definitely more than a sprain."

His thoughts pinball toward a dozen different responses, but he's tired and dizzy and in the end it's alcohol that choses the answer. "There's a flashlight in your phone?"

"So not the point." Foggy blows out a frustrated breath. "Yes. There's a light. A light I'm using to be able to look at your hand, which is swollen to about the size of your _head_. It's really bruised, man. I can't even see your wrist, but now I'm not sure I want to."

Matt lifts his arm to hold it against his chest; no reason to try and hide it now, and the elevated position is far more comfortable. "Yeah," he admits, defeated. "It's probably broken."

Foggy had been calming down, but his heartbeat's speeding up again. "I think the word you're actually looking for there is 'definitely.' I'm going to call Ben, have him give us a ride to the hospital."

This gets Matt's attention. He raises his head too quickly and the night rocks around him; the ground slides sideways under his feet and he staggers. Foggy makes a surprised sound, lunges forward to wrap a hand around his arm. Too tightly, but that point of contact and the wall behind him are the only things that seem solid, unmoving. The fingers of his working hand grip the brick, clinging to a thin edge where it juts from the mortar. He feels like he's falling, tumbling.

"You okay? Because you kinda look like you're going to –" Matt's stomach convulses, and suddenly he's throwing up more warm beer. "That," Foggy finishes when it stops.

"Ugh. Sorry." Matt slumps back against the wall, noticing that Foggy's backed away a few steps. He doesn't blame him. There's a foul taste in his mouth, a clammy sweat collecting in the hairs on his neck. His legs are weak, trembling, and he starts to slide slowly down the brick when they decide they no longer want to do their job.

But Foggy returns, keeping him off the ground. "Hang in there, buddy. I'll see where Ben's at."

Maybe things would be different under other circumstances, but Matt can't say that Ben's exactly his favorite person right now. "Cab," he says hoarsely. "Don't bother him."

Another speculative silence; Matt grinds his teeth together against a particularly savage twinge from his wrist. "Okay. If that's what you want," Foggy finally agrees. Matt hears his phone slide back into a pocket; there's a displacement of air as Foggy bends. "Here," he says, with a gentle tap of something against the back of Matt's left hand.

His cane, he discovers when he releases his hold on his injured wrist to reach for it. The rubber grip feels sticky under his fingers. "Thanks," he mumbles, grimacing.

He can't make himself move very quickly – impossible with the vertigo, the weights inexplicably attached to his ankles – and it feels like forever just to get to the end of the alley. Foggy keeps a hand on his shoulder, a light touch that tightens whenever his stumbling steps start to veer off course. The street is a riot of bodies, an explosion of sounds and smells. He reels under the assault, swaying.

 _She said she'd be here. Omigawd I can't believe you wore it! The line's too long. Did you talk to Eric? She thinks she's so great. Let's just get curry. How long have you been here? What time do they close? No, seriously, it looks awesome. Tomorrow. Do you think he's too old? Who do you have? You've been talking about it for a long time. I'll text it to you. I want pizza. I just told you. Seven four seven eight threethreesixtwofo—_

"Hey." Foggy's voice is close to his ear, cutting through the noise. "You still with me, Murdock?"

"Yeah," he coughs out, unconvincing even to himself.

Foggy works on steering them through the Friday night crowd, while Matt focuses on filtering through the bombardment of stimuli, on staying on his feet. Difficult when there's so much. When Stick keeps breaking his concentration with the recurrent insistence that he really shouldn't need Foggy's help. Adrift in all this, time flows oddly. One minute life is only _walking_ , _walking_ , _walking_ ; the next Foggy's unexpectedly directing him into a cab.

Foggy slides into the seat beside him, tells the driver where they're going. Matt curls around his throbbing arm, biting his tongue against the whiplash of nausea as the car pulls away from the curb. He's not going to throw up in the backseat of this cab. He's not. He draws deep measured breaths in through his nose, reminded now of the bruising to his ribs. It's a minor irritation. He's certainly had worse.

Eighty-three days. That's how long he'd been in the hospital after the accident. It's a number he's unlikely to forget, even if most of the days themselves are missing from his memory. Multiple surgeries to his eyes, to the damaged skin surrounding them; cracked ribs that led to a nasty bout of hospital-acquired pneumonia. But mostly it was the the drugs they kept pumping into him every time he woke up screaming. He'd lost at least two entire weeks that way.

His dad had tried to console him with phrases like _They just want make sure you're okay_ and _Any day now_ , but the voices he could hear in the hall murmured things like _abnormalities_ and _infection_ and _psych eval_. When the last one had finally begun to register, had been repeated more than once, he'd started putting most of his waking effort into hiding the outward signs of his anxiety. His dad had relaxed some then, thinking it meant he was improving. But he can still taste that constant submerged terror. The fear that they'd lock him up, keep him tied down and drugged. In the dark. Alone.

"Matt? We're almost there… I know it hurts, man, but you have to calm down. This hyperventilating thing's not helping. Are you listening to me?"

He reorients himself back in the present – _cab Foggy drunk sick brokenfuckingwrist_ – and fights to slow his rapid breathing. "Sorry," he exhales.

"Enough with the apologizing. Remember when you told me to tell you if you started going overboard with the misplaced Catholic guilt? This is it. Right here."

Matt has no recollection of this. "I… what?"

"Yeah, well, we were _really_ drunk that night. I'm kinda not surprised you don't remember," Foggy explains. "Nevertheless. Quit it."

"Sor— okay." He's worried about what else he may have said. Wonders if what he should really be worried about is that he's comfortable enough around Foggy to let himself get that out of control.

Stick assures him that he needs to worry deeply about both.

He's sure that he will later, assuming he remembers _this_ conversation. But the cab stops, sending everything sloshing, and Foggy's squirming around next to him like he's trying to get at his wallet. Matt shifts, awkwardly reaching left-handed for his own. He's not fast enough; his fingers brush his pocket, but Foggy's already opening the door.

"You should keep the cab," Matt thinks to say as he fumbles for his balance on the sidewalk. "You don't need to wait with me."

The car door slams; Foggy's hand on his shoulder urges him to start moving forward. "Just so you know, I'm ignoring that. Since you can't see the purposeful turning away of my head, I wanted to be sure to tell you so there's no misunderstanding."

"Great. Thanks."

Concrete under his shoes, a huge buzzing building in front of them. Metal over his head – thin, like an awning – and an antiseptic tang he can smell from here. Matt takes a deliberate breath, licks his lips. The harsh odor mixes with the sour beer lining his throat when he swallows.

He doesn't want to go in there.

The double doors part in the middle with a _whoosh_ of air, and the hospital hits him like a sucker punch between the eyes. Blood and bleach and vomit, the beating of hearts and machines. Conversations, crying. There are people everywhere, sparking and shouting in the dark. All clamoring for his attention.

His knees buckle, but Foggy's reflexes save him again with an arm slung quickly around his waist. Matt leans into him, trying to block the rest of it out. He just needs a minute, then he'll listen to Stick and figure out how to stand on his own. But Foggy's warm. Familiar. Quiet.

"Hold on," Foggy says. "Ride's coming."

Stick gets it first, spits out the word _wheelchair_ with a loathing that Matt had thought he'd gotten over. He'd spent a lot of time being wheeled around the hospital as a kid; in the beginning – once he could hold his head up for more than five minutes at a stretch, once he'd finally begun to hide some of the raging pain and fear and been allowed consciousness – it was deemed to be the easiest way to get him around to various equipment and minor procedures. He'd been too weak to walk more than a few steps on his own, too bewildered by this new world of blindness and overstimulation to want to try. But despite all of his efforts to be a good boy and pretend that he was getting better, closer to normal, Matt remembers that for most of those rides he'd been able to do nothing but huddle rocking in the chair, his hands uselessly over his ears.

He struggles to straighten up, to lock his knees and hopefully prove that he can remain standing. "No, I…"

"Too late, he's almost over here. He's huge, by the way. Does not look like a man to be messed with. _I'm_ certainly not going to argue with him, but you can try."

He's too overwhelmed by it all to argue; he sinks into the leather and metal that still retains the imprints of so many people and fights not to curl into a ball of muscle memory. He can't really dismantle the cane with only one hand, so he holds it between his knees and hopes he doesn't poke anyone in the eye. But Foggy somehow picks up on the problem without Matt having to say anything. He takes it from him, folds it up and hands it back in a much more manageable form.

The wheelchair moves a few feet, and the building swirls about his bowed head. Across the room a baby wails, a piercing sound that doesn't stop. "There's a form," Foggy's saying. Matt has to drag himself away from the ebb and flow of the crying to put the words in order. "Name, address, that sort of basic stuff. Should I just fill it out? I could tell you where to put all the information, but I'm betting you can't write with that hand."

"Go ahead." He should do it himself; he can write legibly with his left hand, Stick's training having taught him to be almost completely ambidextrous in most things. Instead he pushes up his glasses to rub at his eyes. Remembers the mystery stickiness on the cane only after. Matt scowls, drops his hand. There's no sign of it now; his fingers smell mostly of dirt, tar. Maybe he was imagining it.

Either way it's a little late to worry about it. And his eyes are pretty low on his list of concerns anyway.

The baby's scream hits an entirely new pitch, zinging an electric arc from one side of his skull to the other. Angry at no longer being the center of attention, his wrist sets off a string of competing flares. The hospital simmers around him, bubbles of sound and motion popping on all sides without warning.

"It's kind of crowded in here," Foggy says, and Matt bites back a groan; this is literally painfully obvious. The wheelchair starts to move again. "There's a couple of people in line to check in in front of us."

Plus all the people already filling the room. If he could concentrate he could probably determine what a lot of them are here for, whether they're waiting to go in or just waiting. But it's all simply noise. From the ward floor comes the high tone of a flat-lining heart monitor. Running feet.

"Maybe we won't have to wait long once they get a look at you. You should've seen that guy's face when he brought the wheelchair."

That's not good. The worse he looks, the longer they're going to want to keep him here. The more pain they think he's in, the more they're going to push medication. Matt doesn't need Stick to tell him this; it's a lesson learned long before they'd met. He forces himself to sit up in the chair, out of the hunched position he's fallen into despite his intentions otherwise. Pulls his working hand through his hair.

"I'm talking about your arm," Foggy clarifies. "I honestly had no idea there were so many shades of purple."

Somebody's phone rings, a bouncy song he's heard too often lately coming from other people's speakers. It goes on for several bars before it's answered, seems unnecessarily loud. "… take your word for it."

There's a few starts and stops as they move up in line; Foggy keeps up a bright stream of chatter, while Matt works to dredge up responses more coherent than grunts and murmurs. By the time they reach the admitting window he's folded in on himself again, bent by the unabating attack of the world around him.

He straightens as best as he can when he realizes it, but though his muscles insist that his spine's centered he still feels off-kilter. No chance of achieving anything close to a smile, so he settles for trying to keep his face blank as he answers the woman's questions. When asked he gives a pain rating of a two; still low, but he doesn't think anyone'll buy a one with the sweat he can feel beading on his upper lip.

He flinches when a man suddenly appears out of the bedlam directly to his right; his fingers twitch instinctively toward a defensive fist, and he has to smother a whimper. A deep voice explains that they need to get a blood pressure reading, an oxygen saturation rate. Matt nods his understanding, but it's still a battle not to yank his arm away when the guy slips the nylon cuff over his left hand.

The woman on the other side of the glass asks Matt for a second time if he's taken any drugs.

"The good news," Foggy says, as he pushes Matt toward the bulk of the people crowding the room, "is that while we wait you can finally tell me the story about this girl. I want details."

Perfume and sweat, shampoo and laundry detergent. Apple juice, onions, corn chips. The baby had stopped crying, but he only realizes this as they pass the child and the wailing resumes. Matt winces, ducks his head. His shoulders are inching up to his ears.

The wheelchair makes a tight turn, stops. Matt tracks Foggy as he moves around to sit beside him, but he's probably inventing the noise of creaking leather in all this other sound. "So?" Foggy prompts. "What happened? Did you get her number?"

There's a man pacing back and forth a few feet to Matt's right. He's muttering to himself, smells like he's been sleeping on the streets. Matt tries to ignore him, to remember what details he's already made up. He'd told Foggy something about a dog. "I, uh…" The people behind him are speaking in Mandarin, rapid and sharp; when the baby spits up, he picks up the scent of it immediately. Out on the ER floor, someone's yelling in angry Spanish. "Fog, I can't…"

Foggy's hand is on his shoulder; his face seems incredibly close. "Matt? What's the matter? Should I get somebody?"

How many times had he sat like this with his dad? The thought sends a sweeping grief – _dead, gone, nevercomingback_ – rushing unexpectedly through him, squeezing his heart and leaving him breathless. It surges up his throat, and for a second he's afraid he's going to throw up again. His eyes are stinging, wet. He closes them, hoping Foggy can't tell. "No," he chokes. "M'okay."

"I'd like to refer you back to my earlier observation about your lying skills." The hand falls away, and Matt hears him shift a little back into the seat. "Seriously, Matt, tell me how I can help. I think I see a vending machine down the hallway. I could go see if there's any water?"

"Sure," Matt agrees. Because Foggy's desperation is so crushing, so encumbering. Because if he can focus, he can pull himself together.

Because he feels like he might cry, and he really doesn't want his roommate to see it.

"Okay, I'll be right back. Don't go anywhere," Foggy says, standing. "Unless, you know, they call you. Then go, and I'll be out here when you're done."

"You don't have to stay," he tries again in a mumble.

"Come on, Murdock. You should know by now that it's not that easy to get rid of me. I'll be back in a sec."

Only once during those long months in the hospital had he woken up to find his dad not in the room, a disaster that was never repeated. He'd opened his eyes to reacquaint himself yet again with the darkness, fire, that was his new terrifying reality, but instead of hid dad's tired _Hiya, Matty_ , there was just the voice of a stranger who called him _sweetheart_. His dad had only left for a few minutes, she'd said; she swore he'd be back soon. But Matt had been certain that she was lying, that he'd been abandoned. That his dad had finally had enough. Disappeared. Once he'd started sobbing, he hadn't been able to stop no matter what the poor woman tried or said. In the end, when it had all built up into a panic attack that had set off alarms and brought people running, they'd sedated him. His dad never mentioned it, but that _Hiya, Matty_ was always there.

He can't remember if he ever actually thanked his dad for that. Regret churns in his stomach.

As a child he hadn't questioned it, just as he'd never wondered where the money was coming from to pay for his treatments and extended stay. Last year he'd come across an article about the accident – a jarringly out of the blue reminder, stumbled upon while doing research for a paper – that talked about donations. Apparently the original story had briefly gone national, and people had sent funds from all over. The perks of being identified as a hero.

His right bicep's beginning to cramp; Matt sniffs, drags his other sleeve across his eyes before trying to massage the annoyance away. It doesn't work. Across the room a man with a lisp calls out a name that isn't his. He thinks about getting up, sneaking out. Foggy would be pissed, but Matt doesn't think he'd go so far as to physically haul him back here. At least not tonight.

 _And just let it heal on its own? Brilliant fucking idea, kid. What exactly are you planning to do when it heals wrong?_

Matt rolls his eyes in exasperation. He doesn't think he can deal with Stick's sarcasm on top of everything else.

The person sitting across from him is chewing watermelon bubblegum, a repetitive smacking and an artificially sweet exhale. In the corner, someone starts coughing. Hushed conversations, a burst of laughter abruptly squashed. The chirp of a video game. The hiss of a portable oxygen canister. Crinkling paper and rustling cloth.

"Whoa, that looks like it hurts. What'd you do?"

It takes him a minute to realize that the voice is speaking to him; it's the guy who'd been pacing, talking to himself. "I'm sorry?" Matt responds automatically.

"What'd you do?" More of a demand this time, colored by a hint of frustration or anger. "Did they get you too?" And probably some mental illness.

He begins reflexively calculating his options should this man get unpredictably dangerous. It's difficult to get a good picture of the room with all the chaos in his head. "No. Just an accident."

"They grabbed me when I was sleeping, man. Tore me up. This whole side."

He doesn't bother telling the guy that he can't see whatever injury he's presumably showing off. Matt sighs, cursing himself for getting involved in this conversation. "S'too bad," he slurs noncommittedly.

"These hospital people though, sometimes they're working with them. You gotta be careful. Gotta know which ones you can trust." Every motion he makes exacerbates the filthy smell coming off his clothes, his body. "Don't talk to the one with the long hair," he leans in to whisper conspiratorially.

Matt's throat spasms, closes up. "I won't," he coughs out. "Thanks."

 _Whirring beeping ringing chiming._ His new friend shuffles a couple of feet away, and for a moment he dares to hope that the encounter might be over. But the steps circle back. A hand lands on the armrest Matt's not using.

"If you see that dog, you gotta get out of here, okay? That dog's always with them." Tiny agitated tremors rattle through the wheelchair's frame. Matt protectively shields his vulnerable arm with his good one.

"Hello," Foggy says cheerfully, emerging from nowhere; Matt's head jerks in that direction, and the room does a nauseating cartwheel. "Am I interrupting?"

The hand lifts from the arm of the chair; another disgusting whiff as the guy straightens. "Just telling your friend to be careful." It sounds narrowed, suspicious – _sneezing chewing wheezing moaning coughing laughing crying_ – and Matt struggles to focus, in case he has to get between them.

"Cool. Thanks." Foggy sounds equally wary.

It's an exhausting effort but Matt sifts through the rest of it to find the man's heartbeat, attempting to judge just how agitated he is. Instead of the frenetic pace he'd been expecting, there's a sluggish arrhythmia that can't be healthy. He hopes the guy actually stays to get medical treatment.

"No dog," the man finally mutters.

"No dog," Matt agrees, maybe aloud. Now that he's honed in on this one heartbeat, he's compulsively picking them out all over the room. Each one adds volume to the timpani rhythm.

"Oh sure, you'll tell _him_ the story," Foggy says, dropping into the seat beside Matt as the man slides away without a goodbye.

He squeezes his eyes shut against the discordant racket pulsing through his head, his wrist. Tries to concentrate on Foggy and nothing else. "What?" he rasps.

"The dog."

"Huh?" _The girl. The dog._ Another name is called; there's a small commotion as the people with the baby get up, gather their things. Confused motion, scratchy nylon and lots of zippers. "No, that was… Think he might be schizophrenic."

"Oh. Okay. So then we don't need to worry about this mysterious warning?"

"Doesn't like hospitals." And Matt agrees wholeheartedly.

The smell of beer and bile drifts up from his shoes. _Fantastic._ He wonders if any of it got on his jeans, if it's noticeable to anyone else. His right hand feels like a balloon, stretched and ready to pop; his head feels the same.

There's a sharp crack of plastic. "Here. Water," Foggy says. "The lid's not on. I wasn't sure you'd be able to open it one-handed."

Matt reaches for it and the bottle is pressed into his hand. "Thanks." It's delicious. Cold and crisp, washing away some of the sourness that coats his tongue.

Foggy must've been right about how bad he looks; they don't have to wait long, considering the crowd. He wheels Matt over to the man who'd called his name, and Matt tries one more time to convince him to leave.

"This is what friends do, Matt. They sit around in waiting rooms reading sticky outdated _People_ magazines for as long as it takes."

He's never really had those friends. Certainly not one like Foggy.

The sounds, smells, tastes of the ER intensify as they pass through the doors, merging together into a roar that smashes him down into the chair. A moan bubbles behind his teeth. He hangs his head, barely able to breathe, the fingers of his good hand clutching the armrest so he doesn't tumble to the floor. Someone touches his shoulder and his body flinches frantically the other way; it isn't until the searing pain recedes that he realizes they've stopped. A voice tells him to get on the bed, to wait. From the impatience woven through it, Matt gathers that it's not the first time he's said this.

He maps out the edge of the mattress with his fingers, makes himself accept the assisting hand on his arm; he's distressingly light-headed, shaky. Once on the bed he pulls his bent legs up to his chest and puts his head on his knees, trying to find some semblance of stability in all this whirling sensation. It seems impossible.

Rocking, panting, he flails about for something – anything – to focus on. Earlier he'd been reading the U.S. criminal codes regarding kidnapping, and he pushes himself to recall the wording. _Whoever unlawfully seizes, confines_ – someone shouting around a corner – _inveigles, decoys_ – urine, latex, blood – _kidnaps, abducts, or carries away_ – shrieking machines scratching nails against the inside of his skull – _and holds for ransom or reward_ –

"Matt? Can you hear me? I'm Doctor Syman."

A new voice, melodious and female and closer than all the others. Matt manages to lift his head a little. Wipes away the excess spit collecting at one corner of his mouth. He grunts a weak affirmative, clears his throat and tries again. "Yeah. Hi."

"Can you sit up for me? I'd like to get a look at your arm."

She speaks to him like a child, like a skittish animal; his body responds as best as it can, uncoiling by inches. He feels like he's swaying where he sits, his sense of balance completely shot. He can't tell. It could just be the way the air's tracing those gyrating spirals.

"Ouch," she says sympathetically. "Do you want to try and take that sweatshirt off, or can we sacrifice it to the scissors?"

He tries to remember what he's wearing, decides he doesn't care. "Cut it."

Footsteps moving away from the bed, a drawer sliding open. Matt understands now that he's in a small room, three and a half walls and the empty rectangle of a wide door. "Where would you say your pain is right now?" she asks as she returns to his side. "One to ten."

"Two."

"Okay, tough guy." She touches the back of his hand, a warning before the icy steel blade slips under the cuff of his sleeve. "Your body language is saying something very different. How much have you had to drink tonight?"

It's difficult to sit still with that metal brushing against his skin. "Couple of beers." A snipping sound fills the room.

"Anything else? Any prescription or recreational drugs?"

He wonders what it is about him tonight that keeps prompting this question. "No."

The air tingles across the hairs on his arm as the sleeve falls away on either side. "What happened?" she asks.

Out in the hallway, a woman starts sobbing. Beeping machines climb over one another – _louder longer sharper shriller_ – to compete for his attention. "Fell."

"Uh-huh. Does that happen a lot?"

"No." He hears a crinkle from the paper bedsheet as the scissors are set aside next to his leg. Her hands are cool on his skin.

"Well it definitely looks broken. We'll get some x-rays, see what we're dealing with. Okay?"

"Okay." He resigns himself to moving, to getting back in that hated chair.

But she stops him when he shifts. "You don't have to go anywhere. We'll bring the machine to you. Sit here and relax, and I'll go let them know."

Despite the advances in x-ray technology, this all feels way too much like what he remembers from when he was a kid. The same smells, the same sounds. He's suddenly swamped by a buried memory of sitting in his hospital bed, assailed by new painful sensations coming from all directions, trying to cry as quietly as possible because his dad was finally snoring beside him. Matt pulls his knees back up to his chest.

… _seizes confines_ _inveigles decoys_ _kidnaps abducts seizes confines_ _inveigles decoys kidnaps abducts seizes confines inveigles_ _…_

The x-ray tech is small, male, probably Hispanic. Annoyed. When Matt can't follow his visual cues – _lay your arm here_ – he brusquely performs the repositioning himself. His hands are gentle, but Matt's already tired of people touching him.

"You've got another one," someone says in the hall as the guy's pushing his cart out of the room. "In twelve. Ankle this time."

"Wouldn't be Friday without drunk kids being stupid," is the irritated response.

Matt could be indignant over this erroneous assumption, but he's too wiped out to muster the emotion on principle alone. And it's nice to experience the rarity of being lumped in with everyone else. Not to immediately be labeled as different, other.

 _Oh yeah. You just fit right in_.

Matt scowls. He'd hoped Stick was lost to the melee.

At some point Doctor Syman returns, confirms what they both already knew. They can't put a cast on until the swelling goes down, so another set of unfamiliar hands appears to construct a molded temporary splint. This man is nervous, chatters incessantly. Matt nearly interrupts more than once, to assure him that he's in no way contagious.

They provide him with a discharge form in Braille, and he makes himself at least skim over it even though all he wants to do is scrawl his name and get out of this place. The prescription for pain meds is shoved deep in a pocket to be thrown away later. Someone wheels him back out to the waiting room, leaving him when he insists that he can make it the rest of the way on his own. The crowd seems to have thinned out. He wonders how long he's been here.

He tries to prepare for the increase in the vertigo that's no doubt coming when he stands. Tells himself that he won't be disappointed if Foggy gave up and went home.

The crash of emotions – _relief gratitude embarrassment_ – when Foggy's form separates itself from the dull flames proves this to be a lie. Matt tracks his friend's approach, willing the heat he can feel in his face to subside. Stick reminds him yet again that he shouldn't need this. Is a fool to want this. But he can't deny that there's an appeal to not having to figure out how to get home on his own tonight. A comfort to the way Foggy's hand lands on his shoulder.

"Hi. Ready to get out of here?"

"Yes." Vehement and laced with vitriol. At this moment, it seems he's never wanted anything more.

Foggy laughs. "Okay, obviously no mixed feelings there. Do you have a prescription to fill?"

He can hear the folded paper in his pocket rubbing against itself when he shifts to stand. He's sure Foggy can't. "No."

"Really? They didn't give you any of the good stuff? And where's the cast? You can't tell me it wasn't actually broken."

"Too swollen. Have to do it next week," Matt explains, answering the second part to sidestep the first.

They walk outside, the doors sliding closed behind them. The fresh air, the dimming of the input from the hospital, is heaven; Matt wavers, and Foggy's hand tightens on his shoulder.

"I talked to Ben. He said he'd come pick us up."

"Can't we just get a cab?" There's a definite whine to the question, but he doesn't want to wait around for Ben. Doesn't want to talk to Ben. Just wants to go home and be horizontal. Sleep. "What time is it?"

"Closer to what most people would consider morning than not. Are you going to tell me what he said to you?"

"Huh?" He's focused on putting on foot in front of the other as they move down the path to the sidewalk; it takes a moment to fill in the missing pieces of the sentence. "He didn't say anything. Cab seems faster."

"Fine. You can just tell me tomorrow. I mean, later today."

A car horn blares from the street; Matt stumbles. The reverberations echo in ripples through the night air, and he has to stop to gather up what's left of his shredded balance. Foggy hums with concern, questions, beside him. "Nothing to tell, Fog," Matt mumbles to the sidewalk, his head hanging low. "M'just tired. Want to be home."

A pause, like maybe Foggy's not quite ready to drop the conversation. Matt buries a sigh. He doesn't have the energy to worry about it now. "Cab it is," Foggy finally says.

There's at least one driver available and waiting at the sidewalk; Foggy steers him immediately toward a car door, Stick's voice chastising him for being thankful that he doesn't have to do any of the work himself. He tosses his cane in first, climbing clumsily into the backseat one-handed while trying not to bump the oversized splint against anything. Foggy slips in next to him, and the door shuts with a heavy _clunk_.

Even the odors of a Friday night cab can't compare to the overload of the last few hours, and Matt's shoulders slump as his eyes close in exhaustion. He remembers the first time he'd broken this wrist, only a few weeks after they'd released him from the hospital. Remembers his dad's heartbeat, a rabbity-scared contrast to the soothing calm in his voice.

 _A crowd forms around them – simmering bubbling boiling – a prison made of people. Too much, too close; he howls, begs them to go away. They press in, come between him and his father. The familiar heartbeat recedes as strange hands carry his dad off into the flickering darkness. He strikes out with feet and fists as they turn on him –_

"Dammit, Matt, it's okay! It was just a dream. Stop –" The splint connects with something solid, and pain rumbles down his arm. "Shit! Ow!"

Matt's eyes snap open, abruptly awake; someone's got a hold on his arm. _Foggy_. _Car. Cab_? He sucks in big gulps of air, trying to slow his racing heart. "Fog? What… where are we?"

He hadn't meant to phrase it so utterly uncertain. Hadn't intended for his voice to sound so small.

"We're home." Foggy's breathing pretty fast himself. "Whatever that was, it was only a dream."

 _Shit. Ow._ "You okay? Did I…?"

"Totally fine," Foggy assures him quickly. "You barely grazed me."

"You get out now," a thickly accented voice insists from the front seat. "Other customers."

"Geez. You can tell somebody already got their tip," Foggy mutters as he opens the back door.

"You sure you're okay?" Matt asks, once they're both out on the sidewalk. The memory of contact still throbs through his arm. The air's heavy with honeysuckle from the bushes in front of their building; he can taste it, perfumed and cloying on the back of his tongue.

"I'm not really okay with how much I tipped that guy," Foggy grumbles. "But other than that, yes. I promise. You, however, look like you might fall over. I vote we go inside before that happens."

Matt opens his mouth to argue, decides there's no point. All he wants is his bed, and Foggy's not going to believe him anyway. He unfolds his cane with a flick of his left wrist.

When Foggy puts a hand on his shoulder he flinches, the dream lingering. He can feel his friend's surprise; the touch disappears, the hand hovering uncertainly. "Sorry. It's fine. I'm just –" _Sick jumpy exhausted dizzy hurting…_ Matt doesn't want to admit to any of the things that immediately come to mind. "Sorry," he repeats, having nothing else.

Foggy's hand returns, but it still feels a tentative tactility. "Yeah," he agrees, as if Matt had said all of that aloud, "it's been kind of a long night."

A flash of guilt triggers another reflexive apology. The sweeping motion of the cane sends a pebble flying; he absently tracks it as it skips away across the concrete.

"Not what I meant. I meant for _you_. For me it was hours of quality people-watching."

"Glad you enjoyed yourself," Matt mutters.

"What can I say? I'm a cheap date."

Foggy pulls open one of the front glass doors to the building and they move inside; it's much warmer in here. The lobby is empty and so is the elevator, but Matt can already hear music coming from what sounds like their floor. He sighs, trying to brace himself against the possibility of having to deal with more people. He'd been hoping it was late enough that everybody would be done for the night.

There's plenty of activity on their floor, but they make it past two open doorways before they're stopped. "Nelson! C'mere! Oh hey, Murdock. Come in here, you guys. You gotta see this."

Matt seriously considers just walking on. Foggy squeezes his shoulder. "Okay?"

He tries to twist his mouth into something that resembles a smile. "… course."

The noise Foggy makes sounds skeptical, but he drops his hand and turns around. "Honestly, Mason, I'm not sure I even want to know what you might be up to at this hour."

Matt follows him into the cramped room, instantly wishing he'd listened to his instincts and kept going. It's stuffy, humid, and the high whine of a guitar coming out of the set of cheap speakers in the corner reminds him of his headache. The weight of the splint drags at his hanging arm, but it feels like the split sleeve of his sweatshirt drapes to cover it. Not that it seems like Mason's paying any attention to him anyway.

"Check this out," he says. "Just got it."

"X-box," Foggy fills in for Matt, obligingly crossing the room. Matt rolls his eyes behind his glasses, hanging back by the door. He should just go.

He gets along with everybody, knows Mason well enough to make occasional small talk. But it's Foggy that people feel more comfortable with. It's natural, expected. Most days it doesn't even bother him. Tonight though he's tired, irritable. Raw. He almost makes a barbed comment about the quality of the graphics.

 _Never gonna be one of them, kid._

He doesn't care about Mason's new toy, and the nausea's returning as the pressure in his wrist increases. It's way too hot in here. Sci-fi laser noises and the faint hum of the game system compete with the crescendo now blaring from the speakers, with the conversation Matt's not paying attention to. There's discarded food decomposing in the trash. _Lettuce, tomato_ , his mind supplies before he can stop it. _Mayonnaise. Turkey_. He rocks on his heels, has to take a half-step backward to steady himself with a shoulder against the doorframe.

"I'm gonna, uh…" he mumbles awkwardly, motioning toward the hallway with his cane. "G'night."

He doesn't wait for their acknowledgement before slipping out into the cooler temperatures of the hall. The cane's more useful than usual as he makes his way back to his own room; twice it knocks against the baseboard lining the corridor when his path skews closer to the wall than he'd realized. He returns the greeting of the one person he passes without wasting the energy trying to discern who it is. A ringing starts up in his right ear as he's opening his door.

He fumbles his key out of the lock, has to stop for a moment on the other side when the ringing rises and vertigo tips the floor to an odd angle. Matt rests his forehead against the cool painted wood of the door, holding his broken wrist to his sternum as he tries to breathe through the disorientation. The rough end of the splint brushes against the underside of his chin; a soft breeze from an open window crawls up the back of his bent neck. Slowly the floor levels, the ringing fades. Mostly. The familiar smells of his shared space begin to surround him.

He's grateful that Foggy didn't seem to feel an overprotective need to come chasing after him, but after everything else tonight Matt can't imagine that it's going to be too long before he returns. Probably best not to be standing right on the other side of the door then. He can't hear anyone coming, but his legs and brain feel uncooperative and he's not sure how quickly he'll be able to get out of the way when he does. Or if he'll still be on his feet. Foggy _might_ get a little overprotective if he comes back to find Matt on the floor.

 _Keep acting this pathetic, he might even tuck you in_.

Stick's sneer is enough to finally get him moving; he uses his good hand to shove himself away from the door. The persistent vertigo hasn't yet given up its hold, objects loudly to his rapid turn. He pushes through it, teetering across the room toward his dresser. It's difficult to ignore the siren song of his bed, but he wants to be out of these clothes.

His fingers are shaking as he pulls open the drawer, brushes over folded fabric to find a pair of sweat pants and a t-shirt. He has to hold on to the edge of the drawer to keep his balance as he kicks off his shoes. Every motion seems twice as difficult as it should be, seems to take twice as long. A vicious spasm tears through his arm, doubling him over, and he swears through his teeth.

He distantly registers the sound of footsteps in the hall. Matt grabs the clothes and heads for the bathroom, halfway there before he realizes it's not Foggy. Doesn't matter, really. He still wants the privacy. He suspects that this simple outfit change isn't going to be all that simple, and his roommate could walk in any time. Not to mention that he needs to come up with some answers. Foggy may have been temporarily dissuaded, but Matt doesn't doubt that he's still going to have questions.

Nearly ambidextrous or not, getting undressed with only one functional hand isn't easy. There's a lot of wiggling and grunting involved. He has to use his teeth and a desperate brutal yank to split the tear in his sweatshirt sleeve up to his shoulder, the only way to get it off over the splint. Needs to sit on the edge of the bathtub to pull his jeans off of his legs. By the time he's managed this he's trembling, coated in a layer of sweat. Forced into taking a break when gravity mocks his feeble attempt to stand.

"Matt? I'm back… Hello?"

Foggy's voice in the outer room startles him, and he's sure Stick's got some comment about his lack of awareness but it's drowned out by that damned ringing when he surges to his feet. His jeans are still pooled around his ankles; he realizes this too late, saved from ending up face-first on the floor when a flailing hand finds the towel bar. He thinks he hears a crack, hopes he didn't pull the thing half out of the wall.

"In here," he croaks, clinging to the thin metal bar as the room spins around him.

This seems to satisfy Foggy; Matt hears him turn on the TV. He carefully untangles his feet from the denim, thinks about just staying in the shirt and underwear he's got on. But he stinks, the cotton sticking damply to his chest and back. He's not up for the hassles of trying to shower with a splint, but at least he can put on clean clothes.

Probably. He has to pause midway through squirming out of the dirty t-shirt, when the ringing peaks and the bathroom fades out for a second.

He stumbles as he's stepping out of his boxer briefs, bumps his splint against the hard porcelain side of the sink. The world explodes into staticky white noise, and he must've bitten his tongue because he can taste blood as he retches. Hurried footsteps come to a stop on the other side of the door. Matt spits into the sink, turns on the water. Wills Foggy to just go away.

After a moment there's a light rapping of knuckles on wood. "You okay, man? Can I, uh… can I do anything?"

Foggy sounds uncomfortable, even muffled slightly by the door, but the caring that's somehow always there shines through. Matt sags under the weight of it, under the strength of his desire to give in. He shouldn't need anything from anybody.

He turns off the faucet. "No. M'okay. Thanks." It doesn't sound very convincing.

But eventually Foggy moves away from the door; after a few minutes of focused deep breathing, Matt finishes as quickly as possible. He struggles into the sweatpants, decides to go shirtless when this saps the last of his energy. Kicks his scattered clothes into a pile, almost toppling over when he bends to gather them up. Shuffling lethargically across the tiny room, his hand misses the doorknob on his first try. He groans in frustration, resisting an urge to bang his head against the wood.

His features search for their practiced lines of painlessness, calm, a trick he's been perfecting since he was young. He's never seen this mask, but it seems to work. Fingers find the knob on their second attempt, and he opens the door to the theme song of _The Simpsons_. He hears Foggy shift on his bed.

"Jesus! Did you do that when you fell?"

His body freezes guiltily, though he has no idea what Foggy's talking about. "Huh?"

"That giant bruise on your side. Did they see that at the hospital?"

There's a definite lag before his brain catches up, before he realizes he should have put on a shirt. "Oh. Yeah. Looks worse than it is." He dumps the dirty clothes in his hamper, keeping his face turned away from Foggy as he lies. He'd left his glasses somewhere in the bathroom.

"How would you know?"

"Funny." Matt sinks down onto his own bed, wondering what time it is. Maybe he'll be able to sleep for a few hours before the building wakes him up. "Can you turn that down a little?"

"Sure." The sounds from the TV immediately decrease so far that he doubts Foggy can really still hear it. "Your cane's on your desk, by the way. I stepped on it when I came in, but it looks okay."

He must've dropped it on the floor, forgotten it. "Thanks. Sorry."

The mattress squeaks as Foggy stands; Matt vaguely tracks him as he moves around, seemingly without purpose. "Do you want anything? We've got…" A suction noise as the seal on their mini fridge gives way. "Pizza or pizza," Foggy concludes, as the instantly identifiable odor wafts out to fill the room.

Matt swallows, rolls over to bury his face in his pillow. "Not hungry."

"You sure? You're super pale under all that black and purple. When's the last time you ate anything?"

He's breathing in short bursts through his nose, trying to get control of the nausea. Maybe he should just spend the rest of the night on the bathroom floor. "Fog, seriously. Drop it. Close the fridge."

An extended blink and Foggy's changed position; a _thunk_ as something is set down on the nightstand. "The last bottle of water," Foggy explains. "You look like you need it more than I do."

"Mmm." Matt tells himself he should drink some of it. Doesn't actually reach for the bottle.

He drifts for a while along a muddy stream of semi-consciousness, unsure if he ever actually falls asleep. Again and again he's dragged back to an annoyed hazy awareness by the jolts of pain summoned by each twitch and turn. Always he reflexively searches for Foggy, the first thought after placing himself in their room. The TV volume remains conscientiously low. At one point Foggy's snoring.

No time seems to pass between that moment and this one, but when Foggy's phone rings Matt's fighting his way out of a memory of a dramatic hospital escape that can only have been a dream. It takes a little too long to assure himself of this; Foggy grumbles and flops about on the other side of the room, floundering like he's been awakened from a dream of his own.

Before he can answer it, there's a pounding knock on their door. Matt starts to sit up but a flip of the room knocks him flat; Foggy staggers in that direction, swearing under his breath. The ringing cuts off as the door's unlocked, opened.

"Seriously? It's four in the morning."

"You're awake, aren't you?"

Ben. Matt growls, pulls the comforter up over his head.

"I _wasn't_."

The door closes, the conversation shifted out into the hall. It's a thoughtful gesture, but for as clearly as Matt can still hear their whispering, they might as well have just stayed in the room. "What're you doing here?" Foggy asks. "I thought you had plans."

"Fell through. Turns out she still lives with her mom, and she was much less into me when she found out the only alternative I could offer was my car."

"Bummer."

"Buuuuut…"

"But what? I mentioned that it's four in the morning, right?"

"But I got this excellent weed, and I want you to smoke some with me. Come on, you have to try this stuff."

Matt sighs, cycling through his options as he tries to convince himself to get up. There's really only the library; too early for anything else to be open, and he's definitely not going for a run. He doubts he's in any shape to be productive and study, but it should be quiet there. He can probably find a corner to pass out in for an hour or two.

"Not tonight. My roommate's sleeping."

"So wake him up and he can join us."

"Not tonight," Foggy repeats. "He's pretty beat up."

"So we'll be quiet."

Knowing that he's already ruined most of Foggy's night, Matt throws off the comforter and hauls himself out of bed with a groan. He battles the dizziness to get across the room, leans a shoulder against the wall and cracks open the door. "Guys. Do what you want. M'leaving." He's not at his most eloquent. His voice is nearly unrecognizable, hoarse and grainy.

He doesn't wait for a response before closing the door and stumbling toward the bathroom, but he catches Foggy's voice saying, "Because he has really good hearing, and you're really loud." He takes a piss, washes his hands, but he can't find his glasses. Can't seem to wake up. Feverishly hot, dehydrated, he turns the shower on cold and shoves his head under the spray. It helps, a little.

The metal bar jiggles loosely as he pulls his towel from it; Matt drags the terrycloth sloppily over his face and hair, dreading the walk to the library. He should bring his bag, make it appear as if he's going to do some work even if he's not counting on it. Once he figures out where he left the thing. And his cane. Foggy said he'd put it… on the desk? With any luck there's a spare pair of glasses in the drawer there too.

But before all that, he's still got to get dressed. Which means getting into a shirt at least. Finding a hoodie with big sleeves. Even tying his shoes like this is going to be a pain. Stick reminds him that the alternative is hanging out here socializing, and the dubious fun of an unwanted contact high.

Reminds him that he's very much in the way.

Matt hangs up the towel, runs his good hand through his wet hair. He just needs to grab some clothes, come back in here. Manage to get dressed without throwing up or blacking out or otherwise calling unnecessary attention to himself. Get out of here and give Foggy the freedom to enjoy some of his weekend. Simple. He can do this.

He's confused when he opens the door to find only one heartbeat in the other room. "Where's Ben?" he asks, lingering in the doorway to check again like there's a chance he might've missed the guy in this small space.

"Probably his car." Foggy's back on his bed; the TV might be a notch or two louder. "Sorry we woke you up."

"But you –" He's totally thrown off, derailed from the plan he's been repeating like a mantra. "You didn't have to do that. I was going to get out of your way."

"Why? You live here. You shouldn't have to leave."

God, he's tired. It crashes over him in a fresh wave, and he slumps against the doorframe. "S'okay. Don't mind. I can go to the library." If he leaves now – _now-ish_ , he thinks, remembering that he still has to get dressed – maybe Foggy can get Ben to turn around and come back. He needs to leave now, really, if he's going to leave at all.

"No. Trust me, Murdock, you do not look like you should be going anywhere."

It feels like he should argue further, but his body's finally beginning to register that it might not have to make that long walk after all. Matt lets his eyes close. "Sorry."

"For what?"

On the television a man babbles about knives. He's speaking so quickly that Matt only gets every third word. "Ruining your weekend."

"Not true, but if you feel that way you can make it up to me by sitting down before you pass out. Have I told you that you look terrible?"

"More than once."

"Just checking to see if you're paying attention."

He doesn't realize he's gradually but inexorably tilting forward until Foggy's suddenly there to stop him from falling. He unexpectedly faceplants into Foggy's chest instead, his nose smashed against his friend's collarbone. "Shit."

Foggy twitches; Matt can feel tendons and muscle shift as he twists his neck. "Did I just hear Matthew Murdock swear? Anybody check for a head injury while you were at the hospital?"

He knows he should straighten up, start working all over again to convince his roommate that he's a capable adult who can take care of himself. But maybe he's finally beginning to get used to this blending of personal space thing. And maybe he doesn't entirely hate it. "Know how to swear," he murmurs into Foggy's shirt.

"And sometime when you're more coherent you are definitely going to prove that. But right now, bed."

His bare chest is cold when Foggy steps back, moves to his left side. He can certainly make his own way across the room without the guiding hand between his shoulder blades, but he doesn't mind. It's nice to have something to focus on besides the room's spinning, the pain in his wrist. He finds the bed with stubbed toes more than anything else. Eases down onto the rumpled comforter. Even this controlled descent is way too fast; he moans into the sheets as his equilibrium bucks and his stomach protests.

"Do you want anything?" Foggy asks above him. "Have some of this water."

A slight shift of his head is all he can manage; he doesn't want to move any more than that. "M'okay. Go back to sleep."

"Really? Because you kinda look like you're in pain. Like maybe there was a reason the doctor gave you that prescription I found on the bathroom floor."

 _Great_. It must've fallen out of his pocket when he was struggling out of his jeans. He doesn't have the energy or verbal dexterity right now to try to explain to Foggy why he's not going to fill that prescription. Wonders if it's too much to hope that the guy will just let the matter drop. "Don't need'm," he mumbles into his bedding. "Dizzy."

"That sucks. Again, though: water. Highly recommended. It's right here."

Down the hall, someone shuts off their music. He hadn't noticed it until its absence, a background irritation, but the silence in its wake strokes a hand over his hair, relaxes a few of the muscles in his back. Matt sighs, his body feeling unusually heavy. He hears Foggy snap the seal on the bottle.

He still doesn't want to move, but water seems like a good idea. Now that he's aware of the cotton lining the roof of his mouth, he can't deny that he's thirsty. His wrist shouts as he rolls over, and he cradles it against his chest as he lies on his back waiting for the room to settle. The cast-like surface scratches his skin, another unnatural weight.

"Good start," Foggy says, "but you're probably going to have to sit up."

"M'working on it."

"Want some help?"

Instead of answering, Matt uses his elbows and his stomach muscles to get himself upright. His ribs complain about this stubborn display of independence; he ignores them and holds out a hand for the water. It's room temperature, but still refreshing.

"So why'd you tell me you didn't have a prescription? Trying to prove you're a better liar than I thought?"

He drops his arm, the bottom of the mostly-empty bottle resting on his leg. Suddenly the water sits with an uncomfortable density in his turbulent stomach. "Don't like taking drugs." It's a murmur, hardly audible to his own ears. He really doesn't want to get into this now.

"You'd rather be in pain? Is this another Catholic thing?" Foggy's fingernails tap against the plastic bottle. "Done with this?"

"S'not…" Matt starts, handing Foggy the water. The cap is screwed back on; the plastic brushes over the varnish with a short _scritch_ as the bottle's returned to the nightstand. "Can we do this in the morning?"

Foggy yawns, a noise so exaggerated that it almost sounds forced. "Good idea. Don't forget you also owe me a story about a girl and a dog." His footsteps shuffle across the carpet to the other side of the room, the mattress rubbing against the wall as he falls onto it.

 _Only person you owe anything to is yourself, boy._

Except Matt finds he _wants_ to give Foggy something. Not all the details, but some tiny bits of truth that might give his friend a better picture of who he really is. Stick protests against this dangerous impulse as he always has. But Matt feels like maybe he could be safe with Foggy.

It's possible this is just his current exhaustion, weakness. The length of this unending night. He carefully lies back down onto the sheets, deciding only to decide in the morning.

"Is the TV okay?" Foggy asks from his own bed.

"S'fine." He slings his left arm over his eyes, a grounding pressure in the ineradicable vertigo. Outside in the grass, the sprinklers hiss on. "G'night, Fog. And, uh, thanks. For tonight." It tastes clumsy in his mouth, but it needs to be said.

"Any time. I mean it. Just, you know, maybe not any time again soon, okay?"

Irregular twinges ping about in his wrist. "Yeah."

 _You're a burden, a hassle, a –_

In his head Matt tells Stick to fuck off. Almost laughs aloud when it makes him think of Foggy. He lies on his back listening to his friend breathe, trying to create a few believable details about a girl and a dog.

He's still working on it when he sinks into sleep.

 **end**

* * *

 **End Notes:** I love the idea of Matt running through law verbiage to focus or calm down. I love it so much that I blatantly stole it from Beguile's excellent "True Colors: A Triptych." The bit of law quoted comes courtesy of the Cornell Law School website (the url of which I would give you if this site didn't keep blocking it). Isn't the internet amazing?

Happy Father's Day, Daddy. I miss you.


End file.
